Posts Tagged ‘training’

Keep Track of Your Bankroll in Holdem Poker

Monday, March 22nd, 2010

Serious poker players may bluff one another, but they have to be honest with themselves – especially when it comes to how much money they can really afford to lose. It’s called Bankroll Management, and it can be as simple as a few numbers jotted down on a notepad, or as sophisticated as software that tracks and accesses all the money that you have set aside for poker. And there’s a key point. You should have a clearly defined bankroll meant for poker only. Many players have separate bank accounts. You never want to mix up the resources that you require for life, with the resources that you have allocated to poker.

There are no hard and fast rules for determining how much you can afford, but there are guidelines that suggest how much cash you should have on hand to get into the game in the first place. Some experts say that you should have at least 50 times the size of the Big Blind (BB) before you get into a Limit Hold’em game. That means if the blinds are $1 and $2, you shouldn’t sit down unless you have $100 to play with. A bankroll of that size should allow you to be able to weather the inevitable swings in the game. Other experts will say though, that you should have at least 1000 times the Big Blind. So – to be safe, split the difference and try to have 500 times the Big Blind on hand at the start of play.

During the course of play the ratio of bankroll to Big Blind will change. If you started out with $1000 but quickly see that cut in half – you have two choices: risk losing it all fairly quickly or, drop down in limit. That’s one of the benefits of online poker: you can move up or down in limits fairly easily. If your bankroll ratio (bankroll/BB) is getting low, dropping down to a lower limit game will give you more time to build up your bankroll.

In a tournament of course, you can’t change tables – and in No Limit (NL) games you could be risking everything you have on every hand so.. in either case your beginning bankroll should be larger. The rule of thumb is to have access to 40 times as much as the tournament entry fee, or 100 times the big blind in a NL game. If the tournament fee is $100, you shouldn’t sit down unless you have $4000.

With those ratios in mind, the clear suggestion is that you start out low, and slow, and work your way up.

If you can keep a respectable ratio at a lower limit, that may indicate that you are ready to move up.

If you can’t, go back to Free Play and work on your game.

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Beating the Bully at the Holdem Table

Monday, March 22nd, 2010

If you have a bully at the table in a tournament or No Limit game you’re in luck: he or she may intimidate less confident players but, if you play your cards right, should provide you with an easy payday.

First of all, note that there is a difference between a player that is strategically aggressive – and a bully. When you have the biggest stack at the table, it’s important to remain aggressive. A smart player also varies his or her approach, to keep other players guessing. A bully is someone who is unreasonably aggressive, betting big early and often in an effort to scare off the competition and build a stack with small pots.
If you are confident that you are really facing a bully, there are certain strategies that can help you defeat them.

BAIT THE TRAP: One approach to dealing with a bully requires that you adopt a conservative approach, getting out early if you have a suspect pair, and generally confirming the bully’s suspicions that you can be intimidated. When you do have a really good starting pair or see a strong hand developing, try to get the bully to do the betting. Position is important here and should be factored in. Move in slowly. If you bet big early the bully will probably fold. Let the bully build the pot – like a raccoon moving into the trap, then spring it at the last moment.

FIRE WITH FIRE: The other way to deal with bullies is to bully them. This a technique that works best when you can afford to lose a few large pots, usually after you’ve been at the table a while. If you start out aggressive, and lose a few big pots you may not be able to stick to this strategy for long. So again, begin conservatively and, when you have a reasonably large stack, switch gears and bully that bully around.

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When to Bluff in Texas Holdem

Monday, March 22nd, 2010

It’s not really when to bluff. It’s when not to bluff!

Don’t bluff early and often. There are always exceptions but early in a game or a tournament you probably don’t have a good sense of who you are playing against, what their tendencies are and – just as importantly, who they think you are. If you play it tight early on, when and if you choose to bluff the other players will give you a little more leeway.

How many are you up against? Forget who you are playing against for now, just count heads. It’s always easier to bluff one or two, than five or six. The point of bluffing is not to fool some of the people some of the time: it’s to fool one or two people every time. If you bluff early and before too few have folded, the odds are against you.

The Flop. Don’t bluff if the flop has given too many people a shot at a good hand (unless of course, it’s given you a great hand. Then again, that’s not bluffing..) When you bluff after a ragged flop your chances are better, because their chances aren’t too good to begin with.

Down and Outs! Smart players don’t often bluff without some chance at a decent hand. A good time to bluff is often when you are hoping to draw to a straight or flush from an otherwise undistinguished hand. You still have a few outs that could bail you out if your bluff fails.

Odds are ‘Stacked’ Against You. Don’t bluff if your heads-up opponent can afford to lose. If he or she buys the bluff, you’re probably not going to be winning a large pot and, if you lose, you are probably going to be headed home.

Take Your Medicine. Luck often overrules skill. Odds are a great bluff will run head-on into a great hand every so often. When that happens hit the re-set button. Don’t change tactics, or drop bluffing from your repertoire. If you work at bluffing as hard as you work on the other aspects of the game, it will serve you well.

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Texas Holdem Poker Spring Training?

Sunday, March 21st, 2010

That’s what poker needs: spring training. Most sports have a pre-season. A month or two when its fans can bask in an optimistic sun, gather autographs, head to the beach- confident that this year will be different.

But poker just goes on and on, without regard to the light, without a concern for the weather, with not even a nod toward Puxsatawney Phil’s prognostication. And that can be depressing. Especially now, in the dead of winter.

In poker the game is never called because of rain or snow, or even darkness. In poker the darker the better.

But does that bode well for this new, universally accepted, globally practiced game? Perhaps when it was just Doyle and Amarillo and Telly Savalas, the excess of poker was a big part of its appeal. But today – when anyone can sit in at the main table, there seems to be a clear need for a poker pre or post-season.

Wouldn’t it be great to head to – lets say, Albuquerque in the off-season (August/September), enjoy the mountain air, and watch the top players just fooling around. Maybe it could be a mini-season with all pots going to charity? Maybe there could be an all-card playing pre-season where Bridge players and Pinochle fanatics and Poker players mixed with tarot card readers, and bubblegum card collectors.

Sure I know, poker players want to maintain the mystique, but that mystique will always be there because it comes from the players, from their characters, their idiosyncrasies. Poker is now as mainstream as horse-racing, as accepted as Jazz. It needs to find both its season, and its off-season. It needs to realize it is a part of the everyday and, so as not to wear out its welcome, it needs to take a little break every now and then.

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